Not Anymore
by Athena Alexandria
Summary: Jate AU, based on Jack's testimony in Eggtown. What might have happened if only eight of them survived the crash.
1. Chapter 1

I had this AU fic where Diane was in hospital and Jack was treating her planned out, and then it all got a little close to home, so I've decided to develop this (kind of odd) idea instead. (Rest assured, it will come, I just don't know when.) I was going to just focus on "Good News" for the time being but with the climate of Juliet/Jacket hate at the moment I'm not very confident about reviews or interest. (I am planning an update though.) This fic will be a little more Jate friendly since at the moment, it doesn't involve either Juliet or Sawyer... ;)

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Chapter 1. 

Jack had always considered water soft and pliant, but as he slammed into the churning waves, he was hit by agony so intense that he almost blacked out. Each droplet felt like glass slicing into his bruised skin, setting his nerve endings on fire; he tried to move, to propel himself back to the surface, but one of his legs wouldn't work, and he found himself sinking deeper, deeper, until an arm wound its way around his chest, pulling him up, and he could breathe again.

"I'm gonna get you to the beach, but I need you to help me, okay?" a voice gasped, and through his haze he made out a woman's face, pale and taut – each freckle dusting her upturned nose standing out in sharp contrast – but without a doubt the most wonderful he'd ever seen.

"Can you swim?" she asked, gripping him tighter to keep him from slipping as she trod water with her free arm, struggling to keep them both afloat.

Jack could hear cries of pain and fear somewhere in the distance, but it sounded like they were coming from underwater: was the shore really that far from where they were?

"Yeah," he choked out, despite the dizziness that threatened to overtake him at any moment, kicking as hard as he could with his one good leg so that he wouldn't drag her down into the depths with him next time.

It wasn't until the water was shallow enough for them to stand that he realised the woman who'd saved him was at least seven months pregnant, her soaked shirt clinging to the curve of her large belly, and he felt guilty for accepting her help when he was the one who should have been helping her.

He was still leaning against her, his arm around her for support, but he withdrew it then, determined not to rely on her any more than he already had. "Thanks, but I think I can manage from here," he told her, grimacing as his foot made contact with the sand, causing his whole leg to shake and his eyes to glaze over.

"I don't think you should do that," the woman told him, her expression wary as she reached for him again, and before he could take another step, his leg buckled and he fell to his knees.

"Damnit," he hissed, humiliated, when it failed to take his weight a second time and he tumbled back into the water.

"Are you done, or do you wanna fight me some more?" she asked him when he stayed down, admitting defeat, the corners of her lips quirking into a tiny smile, and he almost laughed himself. He'd only known her a few minutes, and already he liked her.

"I'm done," he agreed, allowing her to slip her arm around his shoulders and pull him back up.

She tried to take a step forward, but he could tell she was struggling, straining under their combined weight. "A little help," she cried, and an Arab man a few years younger than himself rushed forward to take his other arm.

Between the two of them, they managed to get him to the shade at the edge of the tree line, setting him down in the sand. Everything seemed louder, brighter, as he glanced down at his shin, at the mess of bone and blood protruding from his skin, but he forced himself to remain conscious, to listen to what the others were saying.

"Would you like me to set your husband's leg?" the Arab asked in a kind tone, and the woman's cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

"He's not my husband," she corrected him, her left hand falling self-consciously to her belly and Jack saw that she wasn't wearing a ring. She wasn't married, or engaged; he wondered if the father was on the plane with them, or if she was alone. "We only just met."

"I'm sorry, I just assumed…" the Arab began with an uncomfortable glance between them.

"No, it's fine, really," she assured him, blanching as her eyes darted to Jack's leg, then away again. "But if you could do that, that would be great – I think I'm going to be sick."

She took a deep, calming breath as the Arab hurried off to gather the materials, and Jack was afraid that she was serious, until she crouched in the sand beside him. "What's your name?" she asked, taking off her shirt to reveal a tank top underneath. "I never got the chance to ask." Tearing open his pant leg, she balled the fabric up and pressed it to the wound, focusing her attention on his face and not the crimson seeping into it.

"Jack," he told her, and she smiled.

"It's nice to meet you Jack – I'm Kate."

He forced a weak smile as the Arab reappeared with a handful of vines and a pair of branches the size and thickness of broom handles. "I'll help you put it back into place," he told Kate, "but there's a man over there who's badly wounded—" he gestured somewhere to their left "—so I'll need you to do the splint yourself."

"Okay, sure," she agreed, nodding as she removed the bloody compress, but Jack could tell that she wasn't as confident as she sounded. In fact, she looked terrified. "What do you want me to do?"

"Hold him down," he ordered, and obediently she moved around so that she was behind him, lifting him so that his head rested in her almost non-existent lap.

On the count of three, she pushed down on his shoulders and the Arab yanked his calf upwards, bringing the two halves of the bone back into alignment, and Jack cried out, tears coursing down his cheeks as he collapsed back against her.

"Hey, it's okay," she murmured as the Arab got up to check on the rest of the injured, her damp curls brushing his cheek as she leant over him, stroking his side of his face to soothe him while they both got their breaths back. "The worst part's over now."

She let go of him once the pain had subsided, eyeing the sticks with a frown. "I wish I'd taken First Aid now," she quipped, her voice trembling as she picked up first one, then the other, laying them alongside his leg. "You wouldn't know how to do this by any chance, would you? I wouldn't wanna cripple you."

"You need to immobilise the joint, but don't wrap it too tight," he instructed, propping himself up on his elbows so that he could supervise, giving her an encouraging nod as she hesitated.

"You a doctor, Jack?" she asked as she bandaged the wound with strips of fabric from her shirt.

"A spinal surgeon," he agreed, and she smiled.

"I guess you should be doing this then."

She used the vines to bind the sticks to his ankle and thigh, sitting back beside him when she was done.

"Are you okay?" he asked, pushing himself up against a tree when she flinched, settling her hands over her belly, afraid that all the stress of the crash and his leg had brought on an early labour. He was in no shape to deliver the baby himself, and as adept as the Arab seemed at basic First Aid, he doubted he would be much good to her either. Besides, he had his hands full with the other wounded; Jack could see him barking out orders to a young, rotund Mexican man as he did what he could to save them. It was hard to tell, but so far, there only seemed to be about eight of them alive.

"Just kicking," she assured him with a smile, as if sensing his fears, and he relaxed.

"Do you mind…?"

"Go ahead," she agreed, and he laid his palm between her smaller ones, probing gently until he felt the telltale thump of a fist or a foot.

"It seems okay," he told her, returning his hand to his lap, conscious of overstepping his bounds. "You must be what, seven, eight months along? When are you due?" he asked, hoping for her sake that it wasn't soon. It wouldn't be long before the coastguard arrived; he needed her to hold on until they were safe.

"A couple of weeks," she said with a shrug that was a little too casual, and he couldn't stop himself from looking incredulous.

"You don't know the date?" he repeated, raising a sceptical eyebrow. "Your OBGYN must have told you."

"Of course," she agreed with an airy laugh, "I just didn't know you wanted me to be so specific," but when she answered, it wasn't with the certainty he was expecting. "October 24th."

He wasn't sure why, but something about the way she wouldn't look him in the eyes gave him the distinct impression that she was lying. "A month, huh? You must be eager to get back to the baby's father," he told her, deciding that he couldn't have been with her on the plane or else she would have seemed more concerned.

"He's out of the picture," she confessed, forcing a smile as she stroked her belly, but he thought he saw her eyes fill with tears when she pushed herself to her feet to go see what she could do to help the Arab, and he wondered if this was the whole truth.

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Next chapter: The first night on the island... (And feel free to make suggestions about who you think the sixth member of the Oceanic 6 might be, because I haven't decided! And to speculate about Kate's pregnancy!) ;) 


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you for the reviews. I was excited to get so much interest for such an out there idea! I'm sorry it took me a while to update, but I'm trying to keep everything as close to the official story as possible and I had no idea who the sixth member of the Oceanic 6 was! I finally settled on someone and then "Meet Kevin Johnson" aired and contradicted me, but if asked who I dislike more...! And for those of you who are wondering, Kate's backstory is the same as it is on the show -- including the fact that she was arrested by the marshal in Australia -- except that she's pregnant... ;)

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Chapter 2.

Night had fallen more than an hour before and still no one had come for them.

Now that things had settled down, and a sombre stillness had descended over the beach, Jack could see that he was right in his initial assessment. Of the three hundred plus passengers on board Oceanic Flight 815, only eight of them had made it to the shore alive, though given the extent of their injuries, two of them didn't look like they would make it until help arrived.

The worst of these was a Korean man in his thirties, the husband (he assumed) of the only other woman to survive, but none of them had been successful in extracting so much as a name out of her since she didn't seem to speak a word of English. She seemed so out of it, almost hysterical as she knelt, sobbing, over her husband's still form that Jack doubted that she even knew what she was saying.

Aside from himself, the Korean woman, Kate, and the Iraqi, who Jack learned was called Sayid, only the heavyset man with the unflattering nickname 'Hurley' that he'd seen helping Sayid earlier, and a taciturn southerner who chose to identify himself only as Sawyer, remained.

Everyone else, including the half dozen staff, was either dead or dying despite the best efforts of those of them with even basic First Aid training to save them.

After hearing from Kate that he was a doctor, Sayid had helped Jack move over to the makeshift infirmary, but without the right tools, or even a sterile environment to work in, Jack wasn't confident that removing the shrapnel lodged in the Korean man's throat would do him more good than harm. While leaving it in exposed him to all sorts of infections that he didn't have the antibiotics to treat, it appeared to be the only thing holding the carotid artery together. Without it, Jack was afraid that he would bleed out within hours.

He didn't have the heart to try to break it to the wife, but if they stayed there much longer, it was lose-lose either way.

As soon as the sun began to go down, and twilight settled over the beach, Sayid started a signal fire, close enough to the wounded that he could still watch them, and they all gathered around it to wait.

Every so often, one of them would glance out at the horizon, scanning it for a helicopter or a passing ship or some other sign of hope, but it was as empty as it had been since the chaos of the crash subsided.

For the time being at least, it looked like they were on their own.

"Shouldn't someone, like, have rescued us by now?" Hurley asked when all other attempts at conversation failed, voicing what Jack was sure each of them must have been thinking. He looked around the circle, at each of them in turn, his face falling when moments passed without a response.

"I'm sure they're on their way," Sayid agreed in a flat tone, seeming to decide that someone had to say something to keep up morale, but as he watched him feed another branch into the flames, Jack didn't think he looked sure at all.

"I've got mangoes, if anyone's hungry," Kate piped up to break the despondent silence, appearing from somewhere outside glow with an armload of fruit balanced on top of her bump.

Jack had seen her gathering them earlier in the afternoon, when he was tending to the Korean man, but the thought had slipped his mind until then, and everyone else's it seemed; within seconds the mood had lifted: even Hurley perked up at the assurance that they wouldn't starve while waiting for the Coast Guard. The water content, however scant, could only help with the dehydration as well, at least until they could a more viable source of fresh water.

"It's not much," she confessed as she started distributing the fruit among them, handing two to the Korean woman along with a crudely fashioned spoon to mash one up for her husband, "but it's all I could find without going into the jungle."

Seeing how awkward her movements were as the one underneath rolled out of her grip, hitting the sand where she couldn't reach it, Jack struggled onto his good knee to help her, but she waved him away.

"It's fine, Jack. You keep it," she told him when he tried to hand it back to her, forcing a smile as she moved on to Sawyer.

The southerner cocked an eyebrow at this exchange, regarding them with a curious look, but didn't comment as he took the mango she held out to him. If he were anyone else, Jack might have asked him to explain the joke, but after hours of watching him do nothing except paw through the luggage that washed up on the beach, and smoke the cigarettes that he found, he had already come to the conclusion that he was just an ass.

Kate returned to her spot in the sand beside him once she finished passing them out, and watching her, noting for the first time how vulnerable she looked as she wiped the juice from her mouth with the back of her hand, trying to hide how hungry she was, Jack felt an involuntary pang of sympathy for her.

It couldn't be easy, being pregnant and alone on an island without food or water or adequate shelter, where she could go into labour at any moment, and yet she seemed determined to take care of him and everyone else. It made him want to take care of her; he couldn't believe that anyone – especially a man that she'd loved, judging by the tears he'd seen earlier – would abandon someone as good-natured and sweet as she was.

"Here," he said, holding his own uneaten mango out to her when she finished her own. It was a small gesture, but it was all he could think to do for her.

"Don't you want it?" she asked, throwing the scraps into the fire along with the others', her brows knitting together in surprise.

"I'm giving it to you, aren't I?" he assured her with an encouraging smile, extending his arm a little further, but rather than accept it, she wrapped her arms around herself.

"I can't take this, Jack," she complained when, on impulse, he peeled her fingers gently from her elbow and pressed it into her palm. Her hand was warm and soft, and more delicate than he would have imagined given how hard she worked; how restless she was. "You're hurt – you need to keep your strength up."

In truth, even if he wasn't determined to make sure that she had enough to eat, the pain in his leg was making him nauseous; he doubted that he would be able to stomach more than a few bites if he tried.

"So do you," he reminded her, and she shot him a guilty look as her eyes and her free hand drifted to her belly. He didn't believe that she wasn't still hungry, which meant that she wasn't the only one.

"Besides," he added with a grin when he saw that he'd found a way to get through to her: she was stubborn, but not stubborn enough to win at all costs, "it's not for you, it's for the baby, so you have to."

She nodded then, flashing him a tiny smile as she pulled the mango into her lap, cradling it in both hands. "Thanks," she told him in soft voice, breaking the skin with her thumbnail, and as he watched her make short work of it, just like she had the last one, Jack could tell that she was grateful, even if she would never admit it.

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Just a little disclaimer: I know some of you will be unhappy that I decided to make Sawyer the sixth member of the Oceanic 6 but he's better for conflict. I can promise you though that this WILL NOT be a love triangle fic. Considering that he doesn't even seem all that interested in taking responsibility for his own child, I doubt he's going to fight Jack for the pregnant girl!

Next chapter: The survivors try to find food and water and Jack continues to worry about Kate... ;) 


	3. Chapter 3

Thanks for the reviews. I'm sorry you had to wait so long for a third chapter, but it was a combination of factors: some issues in my personal life, the decline in interest compared to the rise in my other fic (Half of which I'm blaming on Sawyer even though I'm only keeping him around to create conflict), and the fact that my plan isn't as detailed. I wasn't even sure that it would make sense -- it was just an idea I had during a conversation with Sassy where we agreed that in order for the story Jack told the court to be true, Kate would have had to have been eight months pregnant while saving the day... ;)

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Chapter 3.

"Absolutely not," Sayid insisted, sliding the knife he'd just finished fashioning into his belt and climbing to his feet.

At these words, Kate let out an exasperated sigh, her hands flying to her hips, her posture only serving to accentuate her rounded belly, which looked like it had grown since the night before.

The sight made Jack smile. She was so obstinate, so determined to prove herself right even when she knew she was wrong. He'd never met anyone like her before: not unless he counted himself. It was one of her most endearing traits – that and her constant need to make herself useful – but at the same time, it was maddening. He'd known her for less than twenty-four hours and already he worried about her.

"He's right, Kate. It's not safe," he agreed, his smile fading when she turned her scowl on him. As much as he would liked to be her ally on the island, he wasn't about to give in to her – not when it was her life, and her baby's, at stake.

They had taken turns stoking the signal fire overnight, keeping watch, but now that the sun had risen without any sign of their would-be rescuers, they had decided that they should do something about provisions. Sayid was going into the jungle to find food, and Kate wanted to go with him, but no one – Jack more so than anyone – thought it was a good idea.

No one accept her. "And sitting here on the beach in the sun is?" she pointed out, her frustration increasing on discovering that she was on her own, prompting Sayid to try a different tactic.

"Someone has to stay and take care of the wounded," he told her, to convince her that she would still be contributing, but it was clear that she thought he was patronising her.

"And that should automatically be me?" she retorted, stalking after him, sliding a hand under her bump for support. "I'm the only one here who knows how to hunt."

"You're also the only one who's eight months pregnant," Jack reminded her when she slowed, out of breath, watching, helpless, as the Iraqi continued up the beach without her. "So why don't you look after yourself and let him handle it?"

Unlike Hurley, who had the good manners to pretend that he was asking the Korean woman about her husband, Sawyer made no secret of the fact that he was listening, but it wasn't until that moment that he decided to weigh in on the argument, standing up from the piece of wreckage he was sitting on.

"Hell, if ya'll are so worried about him, how'bout I go along and keep ol' Abdul company? Seeings as I ain't a cripple," he said with a smirk that made Jack curl his fingers into a fist. Of all of the people in the world to get stranded with, he had to be saddled with _him_. If Kate wasn't watching, and he could support himself long enough to swing without missing, and he might have driven it into the southerner's face. "It's not like I got anythin' better to do."

He didn't wait for an answer, snatching a sharp piece of metal like Sayid's up out of the sand, and sauntering into the jungle in the same direction as the Iraqi.

As he disappeared from view, Jack glanced down at his leg, still in its splint, wishing that he could prove Sawyer wrong. While he didn't exactly agree with it, he could sympathise with Kate and where she was coming from. He hated feeling useless. He couldn't even stand without someone to lean on.

"You've done enough, Kate," he assured her, turning back to her once Sawyer was gone. He softened when he caught the look she was giving him, wounded that she couldn't count on him to back her up.

"You deserve some down time," he added, trying to get her to crack a smile as he quipped, "In fact, as your doctor, I'm going to recommend it."

She didn't speak at first, and even though he was in the same position, he was sure that she was going to take her anger out on him, until she flashed him a grateful smile.

"I guess I could hang around and help you," she agreed with an impish grin, her gaze flicking down to his injured leg as she added, "How else are you gonna get around?"

He meant for her to take some time to herself, to rest and recover from the shock of the crash, but he felt guilty for siding against her again, so he accepted the arm she was offering, allowing her to pull him to his feet.

"You know, you don't have to do _everything_, Kate," he told her, realising that he'd struck a nerve when she set her jaw in response, her lips forming a hard line.

"Yeah, I do," she insisted, letting go once he eased himself into the sand between the two men where he could reach both of them without having to move his leg.

While he recognised that it wasn't the time or the place – and that it was none of his business – as he watched her dig through the suitcases she and Hurley had collected for anything that he could use, he wanted to ask her why.

All he knew was that, for some reason, she seemed to resent being pregnant, and not just because of the limitations it put on her. When he thought back, the only times he could remembering hearing her mention the baby was when someone else brought it up.

It could just be denial, or her bitterness over whatever had happened with the father to leave him on her own, but he sensed that there was more to it than that. She cared about he child – loved it even – but she didn't want it. Not like she should. Not like he would have expected. It was just another one of the many things about her that intrigued him.

"Do you think he's gonna make it? Cause he looks kinda… yellow. Yellow-er," Hurley said, clapping his palm over his eyes as Jack tore his gaze from her and started peeling back the dressings on the Korean man, examining the wound on his throat.

His condition hadn't improved since the last time he'd checked him; in his professional opinion, he doubted that either of them would last another night outside of a hospital, but he wasn't sure how much the man's wife could understand, so he fixed her with a grim smile, keeping his eyes trained on hers as he told him, "I'm doing everything I can."

He had no way of knowing if his words had gotten through with her, but she gave him a slight nod, tears spilling over onto her cheeks as stepped back to let him do his job.

Coming back, Kate gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze as she moved past her to give Jack the pile of t-shirts she'd gathered. "They should work as bandages," she told him, "at least until we get rescued."

She watched in silence as he tried to stem the bleeding, crouching to hand him things without sitting down, and he could tell that her mind wasn't on the task.

"Would you mind finishing up?" she said after a few moments, wiping her hands on her jeans and glancing into the jungle for what he was sure must be the tenth time. Something about it was diverting her attention, preventing her from focusing. "I have to go."

"Go where?" he asked her, confused by the change in her behaviour. She said she wanted to help, but she seemed desperate to get away: Was she lying when she implied that she wasn't holding a grudge? Or could it be that she was just concerned Sayid?

She stared down at the sand, shooting him a bashful look out of the corner of her eye. "I'm almost eight months pregnant – do you really have to ask?" she said with a smile, rubbing her belly for emphasis, and he felt a blush creep into his own cheeks, glad that she couldn't see what was going on inside his head. He didn't want her to know that he'd overreacted, _or_ that what she did mattered so much to him when he hardly knew her.

"Oh right. You should go," he agreed with an awkward laugh, relaxing as he watched her retreat. Part of him was tempted to send the Korean woman after her, to make sure that she didn't get into trouble, but she was a big girl, as she'd spent the last hour or so reminding him. If she caught him, that would be the end of her trust.

The Korean man's wound was infected from the metal that he still hadn't been able to remove; he cleaned it out as best as he could with salt water, and changed the dressings, before turning his attention on his other patient.

The bleeding in his chest had stopped, and his pulse was slowing even as Jack took it. Another few hours and their numbers would have dwindled to seven.

By tomorrow, it would be six.

He was so caught up in what he was doing – in being useful in the only way that he could until his break healed – that he didn't noticed when Sayid and Sawyer returned without catching anything.

Or that they were the only ones.

"Where's Kate?" the Iraqi asked, a hint of irritation in his tone, "She was supposed to be helping you," and it was only then that it occurred to Jack that it was getting dark and she still wasn't back.

"She went to the bathroom – hours ago," he told him, cursing himself for losing track of time – and her. There was no way that it should be taking this long, even if she was pregnant: What if she'd gotten into pre-term labour alone in the jungle and wasn't able to move? Or tripped and fallen and endangered herself and her baby?

"I'm going after her," he insisted, struggling to his feet with a steel pipe from the plane for support, ignoring the burning pain that shot up his leg, but before Sayid could argue, a third figure emerged.

It was Kate, dishevelled and dirty, her flushed cheeks skin glistening with sweat, looking wild and fierce and yet somehow still feminine and maternal as she headed towards them with a branch slung over one shoulder. She dropped it at their feet when she reached their circle, and Jack saw that hanging from a noose of vines, at the end that had been hidden behind her back, was a rabbit, its neck broken judging by the angle of its head.

"If you'd let me finish," she said once she caught her breath enough to speak, directing her words mostly at Sayid, "I would have told you that I don't just know how to hunt – I also know how to trap."

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Next chapter: Jack is unhappy with Kate... ;)


	4. Chapter 4

Thanks for the reviews. Hopefully this chapter will shed some light on (most of) Kate's backstory and behaviour. My aim is to bridge the gap between the crash and Jack's testimony (with particular emphasis on his relationship with Kate), so yes, they will get rescued eventually, but since the island isn't a secret, the flashforwards may be a little different... ;)

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Chapter 4.

"Tomorrow you're going to show me how to set a trap like the one you used to catch this, and then you're going to stay on the beach," Sayid told Kate later that night as they roasted the rabbit over the campfire.

She shot him a disgruntled look, but seemed to know better than to challenge him twice in one day. Only Hurley seemed impressed by the outcome of her solo expedition into the jungle. Sayid was furious, and so was Jack.

There was no way for him to tell what Sawyer was thinking because whatever it was, he was keeping it close to his chest, but Kate's success seemed to have taken him down a few pegs, because he hadn't made a wise crack since her return.

"I can show you where I found a stream too," she agreed, grinning when her words caught Sayid off guard and he just eyed her with surprise.

She didn't appear at all remorseful about lying to Jack, or putting herself and her baby in danger. If anything, she seemed smug that she'd managed to get the last word in, not once, but twice with this remark.

Jack had thought her stubbornness was cute, but while he couldn't explain why the behaviour of a woman he'd know for little more than a day was having such a profound effect on him, he felt sick to his stomach when she offered one the skewers to him, pushing it away without a word.

She was safe now, but he couldn't stop thinking about all ways it could have gone wrong. He should have guessed what she was up to when she gave in so easily; he should have known better than to let her out of his sight. He would have to be more watchful from now on, at least until help arrived.

"You know, you don't always have to be such a gentleman, Jack," she teased him, trying to tempt him, "You need to eat," her smile fading when she saw that it wasn't politeness that was preventing him from accepting it.

"You're angry," she said, lowering her arm to her side. She opened her mouth then closed it again without speaking, her eyes narrowing in hurt and bewilderment.

"You're damn right I'm angry, Kate," he told her when she didn't seem to understand what she'd done to deserve his disapproval.

She tossed the skewer back on top of the others, her own temper flaring as she folded her arms. "Do you really wanna do this in front of them?" she hissed, gesturing to where Sayid was supervising the division of the food, and Jack saw that Sawyer's ears had perked up, and he was staring straight at them, probably preparing some quip about dinner and a show.

He didn't, but he wasn't prepared to let it go yet, so refusing her arm, he used his makeshift crutch to push himself to his feet, following her to a spot further along the beach where he could sit down.

He could see that Sawyer was disappointed, but they didn't need an audience for what he intended to say. It would only embarrass her and that wasn't what he wanted.

"What is your problem with me?" she demanded as soon as they were out of earshot. "I was only trying to help."

"Were you, Kate?" he insisted when he she failed to convince him that it wasn't about winning; about proving that she didn't need any of them. "Do you have any idea how many things could've happened to you out there? To the baby?"

He softened when she turned to stare into the darkness, and he saw that in spite of the front she'd put up earlier, she was ashamed. "I just don't see why you have to do everything yourself – why you can't just let someone else take care of it," he told her. "Take care of _you_."

He moved to put a hand on her arm, but she jerked it away, her eyes hard when she lifted them to meet his. "What makes you think this has anything to do with you?" she retorted, covering her belly with both of her hands, as if to protect it from him. "You don't know me – you don't know anything about me."

He wasn't prepared for the venom in her tone, but he couldn't deny the truth of her words. He _didn't_ know her, but in some strange way he felt like he did. He didn't want to care this much about her – to break into a cold sweat when he thought about having to deliver her baby on the island – but he couldn't seem to turn it off.

"You're right, Kate, this has nothing to do with me," he agreed, trying not to let his hurt at being pushed away like this show, "but what about the baby's father? Would he be happy to see you taking so many risks?"

She tried to not to show any outward sign of emotion, but he could tell by the flicker of pain in her expression that he'd gotten through to her on some level. "I told you – he's not a part of our lives," she reminded him, her voice clipped, defensive, willing him not to go there again.

"But he was once," he pointed out, unable to resist delving a little deeper into the issue. Kate's life before he met her none of his business, but he couldn't help wondering why she was so determined to avoid talking about it. It was almost as if she wanted to pretend that the baby had _no_ father. "You must have meant something to him then."

"No, I didn't," she snapped when he succeeded in striking a nerve, and he wasn't sure which one of them she was trying harder to convince: him or herself. "It wasn't like that, okay? He was just a guy I met in a bar." Tears sprang to her eyes as she waved a hand at her belly. "This wasn't supposed to happen to me."

The reflexive way she glossed over the relationship made Jack think that she was lying again to keep him from finding out what she was really ashamed of; whatever it was that she was trying so hard to hide. She was too suspicious and reserved with her feelings to let anyone get that close to her in one night. There had to be more to the story, but he could see that that was all he was going to get out of her for now.

"Kate, do you even want that baby?" he asked her, deciding to try a different tactic. Whoever the father was, some part of her still loved him, which meant that she must love their child too. "Because if you don't slow down, you're going to lose it."

"I'm going to lose him anyway," she told him, bringing her hand up to her face as she started to cry, a hollow, desperate kind of sound that made him want to wrap her in his arms and hold her until she stopped.

But she'd made the boundaries clear. "Why Kate?" he pressed, frustrated that she wouldn't let him do anything. She was being so cryptic; so evasive. "What is it that you're so afraid of?"

She shook her head. "It doesn't matter," she choked out, scrubbing her face with her palm. "We should get back."

He caught her wrist when she tried to walk away from him, knowing that this might be his last chance to get an answer. With his leg, he wouldn't be able to catch her before she reached the safety of the others.

"Yes, it does," he argued, unsure why it was so important to him. He should be able to let it go. "Tell me, _please_. Let me help you."

Her eyes locked with his, and her tortured look told him that she was waging a silent battle with herself about whether or not she could trust him. "I'm not who you think I am, Jack," she confessed after a long moment. "If I tell you what happened – why I was on the plane – can you honestly tell me you won't hate me? That you won't look at me differently?"

The intensity in her gaze scared him so that he couldn't – not when he had no idea what she was going to say – but he could see that she was just as afraid of being rejected.

"You were wrong before – I do know something about you," he told her.

"What's that?" she asked, her expression tentative as if unsure how to take this.

"I know you're not a bad person," he assured her with a smile. "You wouldn't have saved me if you were."

It wasn't the promise he knew she was hoping for, but she nodded, grateful to him for not condemning her before he'd had the chance to hear her out.

"I lied to you, Jack. I lied to everyone," she began, and his wariness increased as he waited for her to drop her bombshell. "I wasn't alone on the plane – not like I've been pretending."

It wasn't anywhere near as bad as what he was imagining. Jack felt himself begin to relax, almost laughing in his relief that it wasn't anything more serious, but before he could ask her if this was all, she rushed on, "I was with a US Marshal."

Whatever he was expecting, this wasn't it. As he struggled to digest this information, she squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself to finish.

"I was with him because I'm a fugitive, Jack. He was taking me back home for trial."

* * *

Next chapter: A medical emergency and Jack reacts to Kate's revelation... ;)


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